Care for a Shave?
by Dragonanzar
Summary: When Sweeny hauls Johanna disguised as a boy out of his chest, he doesn't recognise her as his daughter. What if he did? A short interlude between the threat and the scream. One-shot.


A/N For those who have never seen the musical, Sweeny Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet Street is about a…wait for it…barber. Originally called Bemjamin Barker, Todd had a wife and a baby girl. A corrupt and immoral judge takes a fancy to Todd's wife and sentences him to transportation for a crime he hasn't committed to allow the judge access to the wife. Years later, Barker returns to London on a ship with a young and innocent boy called Anthony. Barker changes his name to Todd and goes back to the pie shop above which he used to live. The woman in the pie shop, Miss Lovett, tells him that his wife took poison because the judge raped her and Todd swears vengeance on the men who caused this to happen.

Meanwhile, Anthony is attracted to some sweet singing, it is Barker's daughter, now the caged ward of the judge. He is warned off Johanna by the judge (Alan Rickman) and goes to Sweeny for help. Eventually, Todd conspires with Miss Lovett to kill customers and deliver the corpses to her cellar for her to use as meat in pies.

Johanna is discovered in the throes of packing to run away from the judge with Anthony and is committed to an insane asylum. Anthony comes to the rescue and hides her in Sweeny's shop room. Johanna is scared by a witch like woman and she hides in the large, body sized chest in the room. A few moments later, Sweeny comes in with the judge, pretending to want to shave him. Todd kills the judge and Johanna watches as her erstwhile guardian and gaoler is murdered. She makes a sound accidentally and Sweeny discovers her. She is disguised as a boy, so in the film, Sweeny doesn't recognise her. This is where my little fanfiction starts. In the film, Sweeny says "Care for a shave, boy?" and drags her over to the barber's chair in which he murders his victims. Before he can cut her throat, a scream rings up from below; Miss Lovett has been grabbed by the miraculously not dead judge. After all, a four or five metre drop onto a concrete floor head first doesn't normally kill you. Especially as he had his throat cut first. Note the sarcasm.

Sweeny leave Johanna with the injunction to forget about this night and the last scene is started. This then ends with the deaths of both Miss Lovett and Sweeny. I have missed out several bits, so if you see the film, there will be a few surprises. Those are all the relevant parts to my fanfiction, though.

For those who have seen Sweeny Todd, my fanfiction is set between where Todd has just killed the judge and discovered Johanna and when the scream rings out from below. I wondered what might happen if Sweeny had recognised Johanna.

"Care for a shave, boy?" Sweeny growled, his blood spattered face set in a snarl, his hand a vice-like grip on his captive's arm. Johanna knew she would die as her guardian just had if she didn't do something.

"P-please s-sir, y-you wouldn't h-hurt a-a w-woman w-would y-you?" With her free hand she took the hat off her head and let her blonde hair tumble down.

Sweeny released her as though she was a burning ember. Johanna knew she should be running, but somehow was unable to move. Sweeny lifted a trembling hand and lightly brushed her cheek. The other came up and they both clasped her face gently. Johanna didn't move, her eyes wide with terror as the cold metal of the razor was pressed against her skin. Blood was smeared from his thumbs moving softly over her skin but she didn't dare protest.

"You look so much like your mother." Sweeny said, his voice an anguished whisper that Johanna was not sure she had heard right. "You have her face, her hair. You have her beauty. But you have m-" A scream rang out from below and Sweeny swiftly dropped his hands and stepped back. "Run Johanna. Take Anthony far away from this place and make a life somewhere other than this pit of vermin. He strode out of the room but paused on the threshold. "Your mother would have been proud of you." With that, he was gone.

Johanna stood stock still, he heart racing. She barely believed she had survived. She looked around and shivered as she saw the dripping blood that she knew had come from the Judge. She felt a mixture of sorrow and relief about that death. The man had cared for her even if he had made his house into a gilded prison and then thrown her into an insane asylum.

She heard thumping feet hurrying up the stairs and Anthony burst in. Johanna had never been so glad to see anyone, well, maybe she had been more relieved in the asylum.

"Come Johanna. We must go. The tide turns in half an hour." She took his hand and ran with him. A thought crossed her mind. How had that demon barber known her name? A moment later she dismissed it. Obviously he knew Anthony. Anthony must have told him. She disregarded the niggling instinct that said there was more to it than that.

Two hours later, she was watching the lights of London fade into the distance. The twinkling gas lamps made the dark mass almost pretty. Johanna was not sure whether she would ever want to see London again. There was a strange sadness in her heart for the barber. For less than a moment, she had seen the depths of anguish and sorrow in his eyes. The betrayal he felt. She wondered what had brought him to that state.

Then Anthony embraced her and she let his soft skin and clean-shaven smell wipe away the horrors of that night that seemed to have lasted for eternity.


End file.
